Have you tried implementing a recycling scheme in your office?
It can be a bit more hard work than you think. Just because the bins are there doesn't mean they're going to be used and just because they've been told to use less paper, doesn't mean that employees won't continue wasting.
After having tried everything else, a carrot and stick approach - if nothing else has worked- is necessary. We have a penalty whereby employees using too many forms pay 10p. Realizing that 10p wasn't enough to deter them, the fine was increased to 40p. Now they're hiding the forms so they don't get fined. But the repressive machine is just round the corner. Asked if they wanted training on how to complete forms without re-writing them, one of them, having previously vigorously protested as to his ability to use a single form, was all of a sudden "perfectly able to use just one form"!
A bit of managerial prodding is all takes. Our office waste has noticeably reduced since implementing the penalties.
With this small victory, I'm still left wonder how much of an environmental impact we've really achieved. With the summer days coming up, the air conditioning machine is on full blast 6 hours a day at 1400 watts an hour and the building's electricity certainly doesn't come from renewables.
I guess what's important is to keep on trying.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Suggestions for Government Regulation on the environment
1- Tighten construction regulations in UK to achieve maximum insulation of buildings and to achieve similar construction standards as for the Passiv Haus model.
2- Make all environmental films public domain so that they can be shared and viewed by the masses.
3- Make reducing waste a national priority: make composting compulsory for the domestic marketplace and restaurant industry, make packaging completely biodegradable, make recycling compulsory everywhere.
4- Require that the use of methane producing pesticides and insecticide on UK soil be banned and replaced by organic production standards and for all products imported into the country to be produced based on the same standards.
5- Introduce regulation to stimulate the local economy and to discourage imports through the introduction of a carbon tax.
6- Make all the subsidies to insulation and renewable energy installation indefinite. Subsidize energy efficient boilers along with composting units nationwide.
7- Invest in building new rail tracks and regulate the road transport of merchandise through increased taxation to incentivise more rail transport of commercial merchandise.
8- Increase the road tax on all SUV vehicles by a substantial amount to dissuade their purchase and account for the existing stock's environmental cost. Use the proceeds to subsidize tidal wave power plants and other uneconomical renewable energy type of installations following REF's recommendations.
9- Tighten the regulations on the emissions of all road vehicles.
10- Introduce incentives for employers to get their employees to work from home.
12- Tax the airline industry substantially to dissuade airplane travel.
13- Regulate the beef raising industry and set targets to reduce UK consumption of beef.
14- Read Stormy Weather, 101 solutions to climate change which has many more suggestions for policy makers we don't list here.
15- Invest in biomass and landfill methane capture power stations that capture the greenhouse gas coming out of landfills.
16- Invest in a public transport fleet of buses that use methane instead of oil like Thailand does.
17- A Brit produces in excess of 900 tonnes of carbon emissions over their lifetime along with a huge amount of waste and other environmental externalities. Request that every new born's family be made to pay upfront the estimated cost of the child's carbon emissions over its' lifetime at the estimated "social" cost of carbon ie. ₤25-75 per tonne (79 years is the average lifespan and 12.5 tonnes of carbon). This should come to ₤25-75,000 pounds and should strongly contribute to reducing population growth and making space for climate refugees.
18- Eliminate all subsidies to child birth including married couple tax breaks and child benefits. Human population has been multiplied by 6 over the past century and people will have to die of hunger or not be born when the world begins to warm. A European uses the equivalent resources of 3.5 Planets, this overconsumption means that we need to reduce our numbers to more sustainable levels.
19- Require that all .co.uk websites and all UK companies with .com websites be hosted on environmentally friendly servers generating zero emissions.
20- Prohibit mobile phone providers from offering free mobiles on contract renewals. Get them to offer their customers a reduction in their tariffs. Mobiles contain at least 10 rare metals, offering them free is a waste of resources.
21- Ban the import of beef, soya and corn from Brazil that is destroying the rainforest and announce an official boycott of all Brazilian goods and services in the UK until there is clear evidence that the Amazon rainforest is no longer being logged.
22- Introduce a gradual tax on beef and lamb mounting up to 500% within 5 years to dissuade their purchase.
23- China is responsible for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the government has no intention of reducing emissions. Introduce a 100% tax on chinese manufactured goods until we have evidence that China is making an effort to reduce its' emissions.
24- Require that all search engine searches in the UK be made from data centers operating with 100% green electricity.
25- Delist any companies listed on AIM or other markets profiting in any way from Amazon deforestation or causing it.
26- Impose a limit on the use of fossil fuels and a permanent moratorium on prospecting for new reserves. (Source)
27- Adapt the Hammarby Sjostad model to our urban environment. Hammarby Sjostad is an eco-quarter built in Stockholm in 1990. 80% of its home heating is supplied by local resources, water consumption was cut in half and it has 60% less garbage than other quarters.
28- Require that national supermarket chains source a growing portion of the goods they sell locally. Start at 10% and move up to 70%.
29- Outlaw or strictly regulate marketing to children and especially under fives.
30- Regulate and strictly restrict the use of bioaccumulative chemicals.
31- Outlaw media coverage that creates the impression that people should not take action on climate change, attempts to outline any benefits in climate change, criticizes efforts and policies designed to take action on climate change such as the adoption of energy efficient light bulbs or recycling. Any media coverage attempting to persuade people in any way to drop their efforts or not take action on reducing their carbon footprint is criminal and should be outlawed. Media has a strong cultural influence, is intrinsically biased towards business due to advertising revenue and ownership by corporations with other business concerns. As a result it is not an independent power: it is dangerous to have a business-biased press influencing the masses.
32- Increase the breadth of the Landlord's energy saving allowance to reflect the cost of replacing boilers from 1500 to 3500 and include the installation of condensing boilers as a tax deductable investment.
33- Barcode bins so that people who throw less rubbish can be monitored and qualify to receive council tax reductions, as they do in Peterborough.
34- Tax plastic bags. Ireland has a 10p plastic bag tax.
35- Legislate to encourage the use of synthetic paper for newspapers so that the ink can be washed off and the pages reused. This is already in use in America (Silicon Valley Technical Institute)
36- Create delightful streets. The properties of streets that have trees on them are more valuable. Trees serve as habitat to hundreds of species and retain vast amounts of water in floods. 95% of the native woodland in the UK has been cut down. Outlaw the cutting of trees located on pavements and legislate to have every naked pavement in the UK planted with trees. Holes dug out by council workers, trees planted by armies of school volunteers and cleaned up in autumn by the same.
37- Outlaw the construction of incinerators for recycling.
38- Teach ecology in school incompassing the Planet and how it works, how the natural ecosystems have been affected by mankind during the Industrial Revolution, industrial and consumer pollution, marketing to children, energy efficiency, industrial processes, why they pollute, which companies have had the worst environmental track records and why, the ecology of commerce etc...
39- The best way to incentivise less car travel is to make public transport free and to tax all private vehicles to pay for it.
40- Tax large screen TVs and use the proceeds to subsidize cinema style TVs that funtion with a projector and use less electricity. Keep subsidies for the most energy efficient models until the cost of making these home cinema systems aligns with the cost of making large screen TVs and the subsidy is no longer needed.
41- Use the same type of labelling for clothes made out of cotton as for cigaretter packaging. I suggest: "whilst this product is cheaper than organic cotton, it has a huge carbon footprint and contributes to global warming and the extinction of mankind".
2- Make all environmental films public domain so that they can be shared and viewed by the masses.
3- Make reducing waste a national priority: make composting compulsory for the domestic marketplace and restaurant industry, make packaging completely biodegradable, make recycling compulsory everywhere.
4- Require that the use of methane producing pesticides and insecticide on UK soil be banned and replaced by organic production standards and for all products imported into the country to be produced based on the same standards.
5- Introduce regulation to stimulate the local economy and to discourage imports through the introduction of a carbon tax.
6- Make all the subsidies to insulation and renewable energy installation indefinite. Subsidize energy efficient boilers along with composting units nationwide.
7- Invest in building new rail tracks and regulate the road transport of merchandise through increased taxation to incentivise more rail transport of commercial merchandise.
8- Increase the road tax on all SUV vehicles by a substantial amount to dissuade their purchase and account for the existing stock's environmental cost. Use the proceeds to subsidize tidal wave power plants and other uneconomical renewable energy type of installations following REF's recommendations.
9- Tighten the regulations on the emissions of all road vehicles.
10- Introduce incentives for employers to get their employees to work from home.
12- Tax the airline industry substantially to dissuade airplane travel.
13- Regulate the beef raising industry and set targets to reduce UK consumption of beef.
14- Read Stormy Weather, 101 solutions to climate change which has many more suggestions for policy makers we don't list here.
15- Invest in biomass and landfill methane capture power stations that capture the greenhouse gas coming out of landfills.
16- Invest in a public transport fleet of buses that use methane instead of oil like Thailand does.
17- A Brit produces in excess of 900 tonnes of carbon emissions over their lifetime along with a huge amount of waste and other environmental externalities. Request that every new born's family be made to pay upfront the estimated cost of the child's carbon emissions over its' lifetime at the estimated "social" cost of carbon ie. ₤25-75 per tonne (79 years is the average lifespan and 12.5 tonnes of carbon). This should come to ₤25-75,000 pounds and should strongly contribute to reducing population growth and making space for climate refugees.
18- Eliminate all subsidies to child birth including married couple tax breaks and child benefits. Human population has been multiplied by 6 over the past century and people will have to die of hunger or not be born when the world begins to warm. A European uses the equivalent resources of 3.5 Planets, this overconsumption means that we need to reduce our numbers to more sustainable levels.
19- Require that all .co.uk websites and all UK companies with .com websites be hosted on environmentally friendly servers generating zero emissions.
20- Prohibit mobile phone providers from offering free mobiles on contract renewals. Get them to offer their customers a reduction in their tariffs. Mobiles contain at least 10 rare metals, offering them free is a waste of resources.
21- Ban the import of beef, soya and corn from Brazil that is destroying the rainforest and announce an official boycott of all Brazilian goods and services in the UK until there is clear evidence that the Amazon rainforest is no longer being logged.
22- Introduce a gradual tax on beef and lamb mounting up to 500% within 5 years to dissuade their purchase.
23- China is responsible for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the government has no intention of reducing emissions. Introduce a 100% tax on chinese manufactured goods until we have evidence that China is making an effort to reduce its' emissions.
24- Require that all search engine searches in the UK be made from data centers operating with 100% green electricity.
25- Delist any companies listed on AIM or other markets profiting in any way from Amazon deforestation or causing it.
26- Impose a limit on the use of fossil fuels and a permanent moratorium on prospecting for new reserves. (Source)
27- Adapt the Hammarby Sjostad model to our urban environment. Hammarby Sjostad is an eco-quarter built in Stockholm in 1990. 80% of its home heating is supplied by local resources, water consumption was cut in half and it has 60% less garbage than other quarters.
28- Require that national supermarket chains source a growing portion of the goods they sell locally. Start at 10% and move up to 70%.
29- Outlaw or strictly regulate marketing to children and especially under fives.
30- Regulate and strictly restrict the use of bioaccumulative chemicals.
31- Outlaw media coverage that creates the impression that people should not take action on climate change, attempts to outline any benefits in climate change, criticizes efforts and policies designed to take action on climate change such as the adoption of energy efficient light bulbs or recycling. Any media coverage attempting to persuade people in any way to drop their efforts or not take action on reducing their carbon footprint is criminal and should be outlawed. Media has a strong cultural influence, is intrinsically biased towards business due to advertising revenue and ownership by corporations with other business concerns. As a result it is not an independent power: it is dangerous to have a business-biased press influencing the masses.
32- Increase the breadth of the Landlord's energy saving allowance to reflect the cost of replacing boilers from 1500 to 3500 and include the installation of condensing boilers as a tax deductable investment.
33- Barcode bins so that people who throw less rubbish can be monitored and qualify to receive council tax reductions, as they do in Peterborough.
34- Tax plastic bags. Ireland has a 10p plastic bag tax.
35- Legislate to encourage the use of synthetic paper for newspapers so that the ink can be washed off and the pages reused. This is already in use in America (Silicon Valley Technical Institute)
36- Create delightful streets. The properties of streets that have trees on them are more valuable. Trees serve as habitat to hundreds of species and retain vast amounts of water in floods. 95% of the native woodland in the UK has been cut down. Outlaw the cutting of trees located on pavements and legislate to have every naked pavement in the UK planted with trees. Holes dug out by council workers, trees planted by armies of school volunteers and cleaned up in autumn by the same.
37- Outlaw the construction of incinerators for recycling.
38- Teach ecology in school incompassing the Planet and how it works, how the natural ecosystems have been affected by mankind during the Industrial Revolution, industrial and consumer pollution, marketing to children, energy efficiency, industrial processes, why they pollute, which companies have had the worst environmental track records and why, the ecology of commerce etc...
39- The best way to incentivise less car travel is to make public transport free and to tax all private vehicles to pay for it.
40- Tax large screen TVs and use the proceeds to subsidize cinema style TVs that funtion with a projector and use less electricity. Keep subsidies for the most energy efficient models until the cost of making these home cinema systems aligns with the cost of making large screen TVs and the subsidy is no longer needed.
41- Use the same type of labelling for clothes made out of cotton as for cigaretter packaging. I suggest: "whilst this product is cheaper than organic cotton, it has a huge carbon footprint and contributes to global warming and the extinction of mankind".
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
SOME INCONVENIENT QUESTIONS
What is going to happen when the glaciers in Tibet melt away and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China find themselves deprived of drinkable water?
What will happen when the Gulf Stream Ocean conveyer belt stops, an Ice age is triggered in Europe and the Amazonian rainforest burns as a result?
What are we going to do when we run out of natural reserves in the next one hundred years?
What are we going to do when carbon concentrations in the atmosphere are above 400ppm (We're at 389ppm), the level of global warming is above 2 degrees and global warming becomes self-sustaining and unstoppable?
What are we going to do when we have severe draughts, crop failures and not enough food to feed the world population?
What are we going to do if we have a Nuclear war as a result of fights over what is left of available resources on Earth?
What are we going to do if the Amazonian rainforest, home to most of the Earth's wildlife and generating 20% of the world's oxygen is either burned down or logged down?
What are we going to do when we reach peak oil and most of us can't afford to put oil in our tanks because the price is too dear?
What are we going to do when our attempts to reduce our carbon emissions result in less global dimming and the Planet warms at a faster rate?
What are we going to do when the level of global warming reaches 6 degrees and the 10,000 billion tonnes of methane trapped at the bottom of the Oceans are released in the atmosphere triggering an explosion 10,000 times greater than the World's stockpile of Nuclear weapons?
What will happen to us if the atmosphere is destroyed as a result of the release of the immense greenhouse gases trapped all over the Planet by a stable climate?
Is doing nothing about all this a viable option?
As you ponder these questions, I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion as I: trying to do anything is futile, stick your head in the sand, do nothing and pretend everything is fine. Place your trust in the Science God whilst you keep on flying and shopping until the Earth is no more.
What will happen when the Gulf Stream Ocean conveyer belt stops, an Ice age is triggered in Europe and the Amazonian rainforest burns as a result?
What are we going to do when we run out of natural reserves in the next one hundred years?
What are we going to do when carbon concentrations in the atmosphere are above 400ppm (We're at 389ppm), the level of global warming is above 2 degrees and global warming becomes self-sustaining and unstoppable?
What are we going to do when we have severe draughts, crop failures and not enough food to feed the world population?
What are we going to do if we have a Nuclear war as a result of fights over what is left of available resources on Earth?
What are we going to do if the Amazonian rainforest, home to most of the Earth's wildlife and generating 20% of the world's oxygen is either burned down or logged down?
What are we going to do when we reach peak oil and most of us can't afford to put oil in our tanks because the price is too dear?
What are we going to do when our attempts to reduce our carbon emissions result in less global dimming and the Planet warms at a faster rate?
What are we going to do when the level of global warming reaches 6 degrees and the 10,000 billion tonnes of methane trapped at the bottom of the Oceans are released in the atmosphere triggering an explosion 10,000 times greater than the World's stockpile of Nuclear weapons?
What will happen to us if the atmosphere is destroyed as a result of the release of the immense greenhouse gases trapped all over the Planet by a stable climate?
Is doing nothing about all this a viable option?
As you ponder these questions, I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion as I: trying to do anything is futile, stick your head in the sand, do nothing and pretend everything is fine. Place your trust in the Science God whilst you keep on flying and shopping until the Earth is no more.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Government
In my view Government is the most unsustainable type of organisation on the Planet. It collects the largest amount of revenue of any organisation in the country yet it is incapable of generating even a fraction of its expenditure as income. A Government should be at least in part a social organization involved in loss making social enterprise financed by taxes. On the other hand, Governments should be involved in joint ventures with companies to compete against the monopoly of existing corporations. A prime example of that in my mind is the Microsoft software. Every new edition is ever more unsustainable, ever more useless and requires a new purchase. If the people understood the schemes divided by corporations to obtain steady incomes, there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. In the case of Microsoft, every new version of Windows takes up more space on the hardisk and requires a new computer. Each computer is made out of some rare metals that in some cases only have 2 decades ahead of them before they disappear. Further the software itself may not have been changed for the last decade and no one would notice the difference. Windows is a monument to the engineering of needs for a service that we don't need and that we don't want. Further Microsoft is guilty of several antitrust legislation breaches and of taking legal steps to make the debate about antitrust allegations last as long as possible. Rather than fine them, the State would do better to engineer a product that is better and cheaper. If it could only reap a fraction of the profits of the windows operating system, it would do well for itself. The cost of doing this? Only a fraction of the potential income. My suggestion would be to take the free ubuntu linux system, improve it and commercialize it.
Think about a government earning its own income. We the citizens would no longer be required to pay taxes and companies would end up paying less taxes as well. Obscene amounts of money wouldn't be transfered in such large quantities to obscure shareholders. Everyone would benefit. Instead what does the Government do? It squanders ₤250 of perfectly good money to every couple who has a new born child. As if the world wasn't over populated enough as it is, the Government feels it is a good idea to pay to incentivise the birth of one more child that will end up being responsible for 900 tonnes of carbon emissions over its lifetime. And I'm not even going to go into the incentives for single teenage mums to feed on taxpayer's money.
The Government should be focused on generating some of its own income, cutting its expenses and reducing the tax burden. An easy way to do that would be to instaure a single child policy thereby reducing the need for hospital staff, medication and teachers. The State needs to learn to weed off the taxpayer's breast.
Think about a government earning its own income. We the citizens would no longer be required to pay taxes and companies would end up paying less taxes as well. Obscene amounts of money wouldn't be transfered in such large quantities to obscure shareholders. Everyone would benefit. Instead what does the Government do? It squanders ₤250 of perfectly good money to every couple who has a new born child. As if the world wasn't over populated enough as it is, the Government feels it is a good idea to pay to incentivise the birth of one more child that will end up being responsible for 900 tonnes of carbon emissions over its lifetime. And I'm not even going to go into the incentives for single teenage mums to feed on taxpayer's money.
The Government should be focused on generating some of its own income, cutting its expenses and reducing the tax burden. An easy way to do that would be to instaure a single child policy thereby reducing the need for hospital staff, medication and teachers. The State needs to learn to weed off the taxpayer's breast.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Non Renewable Natural resources how much is left?
All of the following figures come from the prestigious French magazine, Internationally renowned and highly regarded by the Scientific community: Science et Vie, June 2008.
All the figures are based on proved and probable reserves and assume current consumption stays the same. Of course, both assumptions are unrealistic as more reserves may be found but since world population is expected to rise by another 30% over the next 40 years, new discoveries may be offset by a rising population's needs.
Conclusion: 100 years from now, the Planet will have been pillage, future generations will have nothing left to build on and our legacy to them will be a climate in which they can barely live in. That's why they politely call our mode of development unsustainable. In reality, anyone who agrees with it is either barking mad or totally ignorant. Unfortunately, the majority in this instance may be excused for total ignorance. Thank the corporations, the press and your government for that. If any of these representatives are still alive when the shit hits the fan, maybe we can get the guillotine out again for consolation and chop their heads off. Future generations are going to need a triple doze of Prozac to cope with the reality we've left for them to inherit. Smile, you're part of the developped, civilized world.
All the figures are based on proved and probable reserves and assume current consumption stays the same. Of course, both assumptions are unrealistic as more reserves may be found but since world population is expected to rise by another 30% over the next 40 years, new discoveries may be offset by a rising population's needs.
Aluminum: 131 years
Coal: 150 years
Cobalt: 112 years
Copper: 31 years
Gold: 17 years
Iron: 79 years
Lead: 22 years
Natural Gas: 64 years
Nickel: 40 years
Palladium: 15 years
Petroleum: 42 years
Platinum: 56 years
Silver: 13 years
Tin: 17 years
Uranium: 32 years
Zinc: 17 years
Conclusion: 100 years from now, the Planet will have been pillage, future generations will have nothing left to build on and our legacy to them will be a climate in which they can barely live in. That's why they politely call our mode of development unsustainable. In reality, anyone who agrees with it is either barking mad or totally ignorant. Unfortunately, the majority in this instance may be excused for total ignorance. Thank the corporations, the press and your government for that. If any of these representatives are still alive when the shit hits the fan, maybe we can get the guillotine out again for consolation and chop their heads off. Future generations are going to need a triple doze of Prozac to cope with the reality we've left for them to inherit. Smile, you're part of the developped, civilized world.
What do I get out of adopting a green lifestyle
"I know that as people learn to do better, they do better, they feel better, and they sleep better as a result of making a good choice." Russell Simmons, Hip Hop Mogul, Grist, 28/4/09
Realizing what people will lack in the future gives you a sense of appreciation of what you have today. Most people go through life always wanting more. Where does it stop?
You could live longer.
You would definitely be healthier.
You will have a lower risk of cancer and disease caused by chemicals in the food supply and cleaning products.
You'll benefit the environment.
You'll influence others.
You'll contribute to changing the culture and changing society.
You'll do what most others won't.
You'll become more self-sufficient.
You'll become more knowledgeable.
You'll live the way Nature intended us to.
Greatful to the environment for giving you life, you'll live in harmony with it not destroying it unwittingly.
You'll feel like a new person.
You'll be proud of yourself for doing things you didn't know you could.
You'll be at peace with yourself knowing that you're doing everything you can to avoid the impending disaster.
Realizing what people will lack in the future gives you a sense of appreciation of what you have today. Most people go through life always wanting more. Where does it stop?
You could live longer.
You would definitely be healthier.
You will have a lower risk of cancer and disease caused by chemicals in the food supply and cleaning products.
You'll benefit the environment.
You'll influence others.
You'll contribute to changing the culture and changing society.
You'll do what most others won't.
You'll become more self-sufficient.
You'll become more knowledgeable.
You'll live the way Nature intended us to.
Greatful to the environment for giving you life, you'll live in harmony with it not destroying it unwittingly.
You'll feel like a new person.
You'll be proud of yourself for doing things you didn't know you could.
You'll be at peace with yourself knowing that you're doing everything you can to avoid the impending disaster.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Moral Obligation
What does it mean to be green?
What does it mean to be an ecowarrior?
What does it mean to be environmentally friendly?
To me all these terms are fashionable and are used to designate people who are foolish enough to chose an ecolifestyle and self-restraint. Ecowarrior, in particular rings in my head as Don Quichotte, an imbecile on a horse fighting an invisible and for all purposes, inexistent enemy.
This is how the world looks at it. Our culture is heavily under attack from the advertising, corporate and liberal mentality at the same time as it is undergoing a crisis of scale. People do not get the link in between their consumption choices and their pollution because it is not labelled on products, it is not debated enough in the media and for all intents and purposes, why should I restraint from doing something if my neighbour isn't and why should I vote for a government gun-ho on restraining my personal freedom? Screw that!
First and foremost, acting to stop global warming is about change and people don't like change. People are creatures of habit. It's easy to give and to receive but taking away raises havock. Whilst our consumption goes on unchecked, our primitive tribal mind doesn't get the global picture: there are 10 to 14 times more of us than the Earth can sustain on this Planet and we all want everything now. We're only interested in the short-term. Screw the long-term. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That's why as a shareholder, I want a quarterly report not an annual one! And you the CEO if you don't show me some kind of growth trend in my shares, I'll dump them.
Despite what you think of it, no matter how difficult it might be, everyone of us has a moral obligation to do everything they can to reduce their carbon footprint. Life is at stake. Since we've all been given that gift, it is our obligation to pass it on to future generations. We are all able to participate in economic activity, able to enjoy the freebies given to us by our beautiful planet, the air, the trees, the food, the habitat. It's up to us to preserve all of that and we all have a tremendous power to do that in our daily lives.
What does it mean to be an ecowarrior?
What does it mean to be environmentally friendly?
To me all these terms are fashionable and are used to designate people who are foolish enough to chose an ecolifestyle and self-restraint. Ecowarrior, in particular rings in my head as Don Quichotte, an imbecile on a horse fighting an invisible and for all purposes, inexistent enemy.
This is how the world looks at it. Our culture is heavily under attack from the advertising, corporate and liberal mentality at the same time as it is undergoing a crisis of scale. People do not get the link in between their consumption choices and their pollution because it is not labelled on products, it is not debated enough in the media and for all intents and purposes, why should I restraint from doing something if my neighbour isn't and why should I vote for a government gun-ho on restraining my personal freedom? Screw that!
First and foremost, acting to stop global warming is about change and people don't like change. People are creatures of habit. It's easy to give and to receive but taking away raises havock. Whilst our consumption goes on unchecked, our primitive tribal mind doesn't get the global picture: there are 10 to 14 times more of us than the Earth can sustain on this Planet and we all want everything now. We're only interested in the short-term. Screw the long-term. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That's why as a shareholder, I want a quarterly report not an annual one! And you the CEO if you don't show me some kind of growth trend in my shares, I'll dump them.
Despite what you think of it, no matter how difficult it might be, everyone of us has a moral obligation to do everything they can to reduce their carbon footprint. Life is at stake. Since we've all been given that gift, it is our obligation to pass it on to future generations. We are all able to participate in economic activity, able to enjoy the freebies given to us by our beautiful planet, the air, the trees, the food, the habitat. It's up to us to preserve all of that and we all have a tremendous power to do that in our daily lives.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Flight tax
The government's income's fallen and we're on the brink of bankruptcy?
Not a problem. There's an easy way out.
Here's a policy idea for politicians looking for funding: tax each airline passenger for the estimated amount of greenhouse gases produced by their flight. Ensure that the passenger is not taxed based on the airline's reported emissions but on the true emissions including contrail and nitrogen which triples the reported total. That should make the price of each ticket 50-60 dearer dissuading week-end escapades and bringing much needed revenue to the Treasury.
Use the tax to fund subsidies in cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, condensing boilers and to heavily subsidize the installation of uneconomical renewable energy facilities such as tidal wave and biomass. I recently read alarming reports from the charity REF about the fact that most renewable energy investment goes into the least capital intensive technology, wind, preventing us from having a balanced portfolio of renewable energy power stations.
Any jobs lost in airlines as a result of these taxes could be gained in the renewable energy sector.
Sure enough there would be a public backlash and people would complain for a while but do you notice anyone complaining when they go and fill up at the petrol station?
Not a problem. There's an easy way out.
Here's a policy idea for politicians looking for funding: tax each airline passenger for the estimated amount of greenhouse gases produced by their flight. Ensure that the passenger is not taxed based on the airline's reported emissions but on the true emissions including contrail and nitrogen which triples the reported total. That should make the price of each ticket 50-60 dearer dissuading week-end escapades and bringing much needed revenue to the Treasury.
Use the tax to fund subsidies in cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, condensing boilers and to heavily subsidize the installation of uneconomical renewable energy facilities such as tidal wave and biomass. I recently read alarming reports from the charity REF about the fact that most renewable energy investment goes into the least capital intensive technology, wind, preventing us from having a balanced portfolio of renewable energy power stations.
Any jobs lost in airlines as a result of these taxes could be gained in the renewable energy sector.
Sure enough there would be a public backlash and people would complain for a while but do you notice anyone complaining when they go and fill up at the petrol station?
Saturday, 4 April 2009
A note of hope on the politics of climate change
In my previous post, I noted how useless politicians were in dealing with climate change issues. There is another side to that argument that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the fact that Barrack Obama was elected President. He is living proof of our species potential.
Within his first days of office, he takes decisive decisions to address environmental, social and legal issues in theU.S.
In dealing with problems, he adopts a dual approach which can be observed in nuanced, balanced statements attempting to find outcomes satisfying opposite views and thereby catering to a wider audience, a true exercise in democracy. He is capable of doing this at the same time as he furthers a single-sided agenda. The secret of his leadership resides in his highly skilled communication ability to satisfy both sides of the electorate in order to get an issue really satisfying one side to move up the agenda.
The cost will come in the future as true leadership means that sooner or later powerful interests in the electorate will be alienated and find a way to undermine the progress that has been made. This is what lead Obama to be elected in the first place: a combination of the financial crisis and Bush's lack of leadership. But the same effect will be at play in the future, change leads on to more change.
The essence of leadership is this: you can either be good to people or good for people. Being good for them justifies taking actions they disagree with in the present but that the leader expects will benefit them in the future. This process can't really be described as good or bad.
Our society is badly in need of true leadership but it is a rare commodity. I'm a big believer that the leadership that society needs exists in every individual who discovers they are capable of taking matters in their own hands and achieving significant changes.
Within his first days of office, he takes decisive decisions to address environmental, social and legal issues in the
In dealing with problems, he adopts a dual approach which can be observed in nuanced, balanced statements attempting to find outcomes satisfying opposite views and thereby catering to a wider audience, a true exercise in democracy. He is capable of doing this at the same time as he furthers a single-sided agenda. The secret of his leadership resides in his highly skilled communication ability to satisfy both sides of the electorate in order to get an issue really satisfying one side to move up the agenda.
The cost will come in the future as true leadership means that sooner or later powerful interests in the electorate will be alienated and find a way to undermine the progress that has been made. This is what lead Obama to be elected in the first place: a combination of the financial crisis and Bush's lack of leadership. But the same effect will be at play in the future, change leads on to more change.
The essence of leadership is this: you can either be good to people or good for people. Being good for them justifies taking actions they disagree with in the present but that the leader expects will benefit them in the future. This process can't really be described as good or bad.
Our society is badly in need of true leadership but it is a rare commodity. I'm a big believer that the leadership that society needs exists in every individual who discovers they are capable of taking matters in their own hands and achieving significant changes.
The crisis of inactivity
"The meaning of the industrial revolution was that nature was turned into a resource that was considered endlessly abundant. The deterioration of the environment of our planet is an outward mirror of an inner condition. Like inside, like outside." Source: the 11th Hour
The problem we are having with our ecological impact is not just one of carbon output. The problem is one of failure of carbon reduction initiatives. If we wanted we could reduce our carbon emissions. The problem is in finding the will. It seems to me that will lacks in politicians, it lacks in individuals, it lacks in industry, it lacks in society as a whole.
Is the problem to do with our economic system? Does capitalism engender unstoppable levels of pollution? Another way to phrase the problem is: can society as a whole change fast enough to dodge levels of global warming that would bring civilization to an end? James Lovelock is pessimistic on the subject judging that mankind isn't intelligent enough to avoid its own unmaking. Most environmentalists would rather live in a state of denial than admit to that, including myself.
Capitalism has huge benefits for mankind. It enables it to secure the basics and fulfill its secondary needs but in the process it is self-destructive judging by what the science tells us about the state of the Planet. As a species we have an inbuilt compulsory need for security. We need the security that we can secure adequate supplies of food and shelter to survive and past that stage, we need to be occupied. Capitalism is the solution to these needs. At an individual level, we are sometimes so caught up in trying to make a living that we have no time to consider the environmental impact of our lives and no time to do anything about it either.
If we look at politicians, they are no different to us. One area of economics that helps us understand their motivations is game theory. Politicians have to operate in a constrained environment of incentives and punishment. Politicians are no different to you or me, they will do what they can to remain in office. In doing so, taking measures that risk allienating them public support in the short term are undesirable outcomes. That's why there is no tax on plane travel or any restriction of any kind on travel routes or number of plane journeys, despite the fact that plane pollution is one of the most important causes of global warming and one of the easiest to address. The market fixes the problem through supply and demand. The only restriction existing on plane travel is that of available runways in the UK. Since the market only regulates itself through supply, demand and price, it is not capable of looking after its long term interest: its ability to continue as an entity indefinitely. Rather, it is preoccupied with the short-term issue of keeping the whole complex system functioning. As the financial crisis demonstrates: to insure its long-term survival, the market needs a regulatory framework that defines the boundaries in which it can operate. That is the Yin and Yang of the market if you like.
The Yin and Yang of the Planet is imbalanced: ecological systems are collapsing and not enough is being done to address their collapse, namely a reduction in the carbon emissions that are aggravating the warming. They say that hindsight is a beautiful thing. In hindsight, we could have regulated the derivatives market and avoided the worst of a crisis that has so far required us to borrow trillions to see ourselves out of it. In the end the market got its way: it wanted freedom to operate as it saw fit, it got it and in the process it created a Yin and Yang imblance: the abscence of regulation. Regulation could have avoided the issuing of so much junk debt and the insurance of that junk debt to a level of eight times the actual amount of the junk debt! It didn't and that created the crisis. In hindsight, people might have preferred regulation at the cost of not being able to live as well as they desired. Now the price they have to pay is insecurity. Insecurity is a better price to pay than life itself. At least if you don't have a job, you still have a life. So long as you scramble to find food and shelter, you'll live.
The next crisis, the environmental crisis, is far worst: what it will deprive us of this time is our lives. James Lovelock made an educated guess that the world's population would decrease from 9 billion in 2050 to 1 billion in 2100. The same happened on Easter Island seven centuries ago. Population peaked at 7000 and then shrinked 90% once the inhabitants had deforested the Island to erect the world famous Moai Statues. With no trees left, the inhabitants were no longer able to build boats so they killed each other to avoid starving to death. A genius wasn't required to see that to insure their own survival, the inhabitants needed to insure the survival of the forest but the inhabitants were to preoccupied in fulfilling their short-term need of securing protection from the Gods to distinguish the tree from the forest. This lack of foresight cost them their civilization. When the island was rediscovered by a Western explorer in the 16th century, only a few hundred starved, bony survivors remained. To this day, the abundant tropical forest that once rellished the island has not returned.
Individuals cannot count on politicians to deal effectively and decisively with global warming before it's too late. Politicians are elected in a democracy to fulfill the needs of individuals and the short-term need of individuals is prosperity. Individuals, like the market, are not capable of looking after their long-term interest: survival of the species. For an individual to gather the motivation to look after their long-term interest, a crisis is needed. Not until they find their homes flooded or their food supply dwindling will individuals take decisive action to protect themselves. Unfortunately, in the case of the global warming crisis, the crisis once it is set is unstoppable and causes total annihilation of the ecosystems and the species that depend upon it. The perversity of the environmental crisis is that it will not manifest itself in life threatening ways until it is already too late and it cannot be avoided.
Why should we expect politicians to deal with the environmental crisis if the reward they get for it is a media storm, discreditation alongside getting voted out of office?
Judging by the most recent scientific reports, it's already too late anyway. But we may still have a shot, albeit a very uncertain one since no one can really tell you how we can take back the carbon we've put in the atmosphere and avoid the methane burried at the bottom of the ocean from coming out. But I trust in human ingeniosity, I just hope we'll find something. In the meanwhile, we need to find ways to reduce our carbon emissions.
Coming back to capitalism, I'm a big believer that adequately manipulated, it can indeed offer a solution to our problem: the environmental crisis. The solution is the week-end.
Thanks to the wealth we are able during week days, we have as a nation, an untapped potential of 51 billion hours, worth at minimum wage, 304 billion a year. Desperate times call for desperate measures. What to do with this free time?
The most important life saving infrastructure that needs to be built is a means to absorb the excess carbon that has built up in the atmosphere over the past 50 years. That carbon needs to be sucked in and stored. Storage reserves exist but what we need is pipeline infrastructure leading to geological areas where the carbon can be stored along with a worldwide network of chimney infrastructure to suck in the carbon. This solution was presented in New Scientist in February 09 but it was among the least economical. In carbon capture and storage, we cannot take into account economical factors. You can't dump stuff in the atmosphere or in the oceans without being able to retrieve it and without knowing its long term effect. It's just too dangerous. I've read of particles that could be sent out in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight that could self-destruct but I'm sceptical about this. How can these particles be controlled? What if they have any secondary or unexpected effects? To me the common sense solution would be to put the carbon back where we found it and for that, we have a huge untapped man hour reserve that could well solve our problems without costing us our lifestyles.
So how do you get people to work on their week-ends? And more importantly, how do you get them to learn the skills required to do the necessary work? How do you mobilize an entire society?
The answer is in our past. In the past, military drafting was compulsory. A cultural, social and economical change of the magnitude of using up people's week-ends for production would require a military-style level of organization. Some people would have to work a seven day week continuing with their normal jobs whilst others would be taken away from their job to work full-time in the carbon sucking manufacturing sector. In the past, peasents use to work a 6 day week, Sunday was God's day and you stopped work that day to honour God. Sunday was never really a day for rest. The idea of resting at weekends to recharge your batteries is nice but would you stop to rest at weekends if your life was endangered?
Now that most of society is without faith, working Sunday isn't such a problem anymore. Even if society was with faith, it would be an honour to work on Sunday to protect God's gift to mankind: the Planet.
Initially, the measure could work by getting people to volunteer to either work weekends in their firms or to work on carbon sucking manufacturing full-time. It could also work on a rota system where people would spend a year in this system, a year out then another year in. I think it would work best targeting the service and public sector industry in the sectors that are deemed the least stressful such as administration, IT, banking, retail etc... where the need for rest is least required.
The untapped potential is there. It's up to us to seize it and do something to address the crisis of inactivity.
The problem we are having with our ecological impact is not just one of carbon output. The problem is one of failure of carbon reduction initiatives. If we wanted we could reduce our carbon emissions. The problem is in finding the will. It seems to me that will lacks in politicians, it lacks in individuals, it lacks in industry, it lacks in society as a whole.
Is the problem to do with our economic system? Does capitalism engender unstoppable levels of pollution? Another way to phrase the problem is: can society as a whole change fast enough to dodge levels of global warming that would bring civilization to an end? James Lovelock is pessimistic on the subject judging that mankind isn't intelligent enough to avoid its own unmaking. Most environmentalists would rather live in a state of denial than admit to that, including myself.
Capitalism has huge benefits for mankind. It enables it to secure the basics and fulfill its secondary needs but in the process it is self-destructive judging by what the science tells us about the state of the Planet. As a species we have an inbuilt compulsory need for security. We need the security that we can secure adequate supplies of food and shelter to survive and past that stage, we need to be occupied. Capitalism is the solution to these needs. At an individual level, we are sometimes so caught up in trying to make a living that we have no time to consider the environmental impact of our lives and no time to do anything about it either.
If we look at politicians, they are no different to us. One area of economics that helps us understand their motivations is game theory. Politicians have to operate in a constrained environment of incentives and punishment. Politicians are no different to you or me, they will do what they can to remain in office. In doing so, taking measures that risk allienating them public support in the short term are undesirable outcomes. That's why there is no tax on plane travel or any restriction of any kind on travel routes or number of plane journeys, despite the fact that plane pollution is one of the most important causes of global warming and one of the easiest to address. The market fixes the problem through supply and demand. The only restriction existing on plane travel is that of available runways in the UK. Since the market only regulates itself through supply, demand and price, it is not capable of looking after its long term interest: its ability to continue as an entity indefinitely. Rather, it is preoccupied with the short-term issue of keeping the whole complex system functioning. As the financial crisis demonstrates: to insure its long-term survival, the market needs a regulatory framework that defines the boundaries in which it can operate. That is the Yin and Yang of the market if you like.
The Yin and Yang of the Planet is imbalanced: ecological systems are collapsing and not enough is being done to address their collapse, namely a reduction in the carbon emissions that are aggravating the warming. They say that hindsight is a beautiful thing. In hindsight, we could have regulated the derivatives market and avoided the worst of a crisis that has so far required us to borrow trillions to see ourselves out of it. In the end the market got its way: it wanted freedom to operate as it saw fit, it got it and in the process it created a Yin and Yang imblance: the abscence of regulation. Regulation could have avoided the issuing of so much junk debt and the insurance of that junk debt to a level of eight times the actual amount of the junk debt! It didn't and that created the crisis. In hindsight, people might have preferred regulation at the cost of not being able to live as well as they desired. Now the price they have to pay is insecurity. Insecurity is a better price to pay than life itself. At least if you don't have a job, you still have a life. So long as you scramble to find food and shelter, you'll live.
The next crisis, the environmental crisis, is far worst: what it will deprive us of this time is our lives. James Lovelock made an educated guess that the world's population would decrease from 9 billion in 2050 to 1 billion in 2100. The same happened on Easter Island seven centuries ago. Population peaked at 7000 and then shrinked 90% once the inhabitants had deforested the Island to erect the world famous Moai Statues. With no trees left, the inhabitants were no longer able to build boats so they killed each other to avoid starving to death. A genius wasn't required to see that to insure their own survival, the inhabitants needed to insure the survival of the forest but the inhabitants were to preoccupied in fulfilling their short-term need of securing protection from the Gods to distinguish the tree from the forest. This lack of foresight cost them their civilization. When the island was rediscovered by a Western explorer in the 16th century, only a few hundred starved, bony survivors remained. To this day, the abundant tropical forest that once rellished the island has not returned.
Individuals cannot count on politicians to deal effectively and decisively with global warming before it's too late. Politicians are elected in a democracy to fulfill the needs of individuals and the short-term need of individuals is prosperity. Individuals, like the market, are not capable of looking after their long-term interest: survival of the species. For an individual to gather the motivation to look after their long-term interest, a crisis is needed. Not until they find their homes flooded or their food supply dwindling will individuals take decisive action to protect themselves. Unfortunately, in the case of the global warming crisis, the crisis once it is set is unstoppable and causes total annihilation of the ecosystems and the species that depend upon it. The perversity of the environmental crisis is that it will not manifest itself in life threatening ways until it is already too late and it cannot be avoided.
Why should we expect politicians to deal with the environmental crisis if the reward they get for it is a media storm, discreditation alongside getting voted out of office?
Judging by the most recent scientific reports, it's already too late anyway. But we may still have a shot, albeit a very uncertain one since no one can really tell you how we can take back the carbon we've put in the atmosphere and avoid the methane burried at the bottom of the ocean from coming out. But I trust in human ingeniosity, I just hope we'll find something. In the meanwhile, we need to find ways to reduce our carbon emissions.
Coming back to capitalism, I'm a big believer that adequately manipulated, it can indeed offer a solution to our problem: the environmental crisis. The solution is the week-end.
Thanks to the wealth we are able during week days, we have as a nation, an untapped potential of 51 billion hours, worth at minimum wage, 304 billion a year. Desperate times call for desperate measures. What to do with this free time?
The most important life saving infrastructure that needs to be built is a means to absorb the excess carbon that has built up in the atmosphere over the past 50 years. That carbon needs to be sucked in and stored. Storage reserves exist but what we need is pipeline infrastructure leading to geological areas where the carbon can be stored along with a worldwide network of chimney infrastructure to suck in the carbon. This solution was presented in New Scientist in February 09 but it was among the least economical. In carbon capture and storage, we cannot take into account economical factors. You can't dump stuff in the atmosphere or in the oceans without being able to retrieve it and without knowing its long term effect. It's just too dangerous. I've read of particles that could be sent out in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight that could self-destruct but I'm sceptical about this. How can these particles be controlled? What if they have any secondary or unexpected effects? To me the common sense solution would be to put the carbon back where we found it and for that, we have a huge untapped man hour reserve that could well solve our problems without costing us our lifestyles.
So how do you get people to work on their week-ends? And more importantly, how do you get them to learn the skills required to do the necessary work? How do you mobilize an entire society?
The answer is in our past. In the past, military drafting was compulsory. A cultural, social and economical change of the magnitude of using up people's week-ends for production would require a military-style level of organization. Some people would have to work a seven day week continuing with their normal jobs whilst others would be taken away from their job to work full-time in the carbon sucking manufacturing sector. In the past, peasents use to work a 6 day week, Sunday was God's day and you stopped work that day to honour God. Sunday was never really a day for rest. The idea of resting at weekends to recharge your batteries is nice but would you stop to rest at weekends if your life was endangered?
Now that most of society is without faith, working Sunday isn't such a problem anymore. Even if society was with faith, it would be an honour to work on Sunday to protect God's gift to mankind: the Planet.
Initially, the measure could work by getting people to volunteer to either work weekends in their firms or to work on carbon sucking manufacturing full-time. It could also work on a rota system where people would spend a year in this system, a year out then another year in. I think it would work best targeting the service and public sector industry in the sectors that are deemed the least stressful such as administration, IT, banking, retail etc... where the need for rest is least required.
The untapped potential is there. It's up to us to seize it and do something to address the crisis of inactivity.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Best of Monbiot
If only we had more Monbiots... His book Heat is a must to read for anyone looking for answers to how the climate change crisis can be dealt with. I recommend reading his articles, they are enlightening and subscribing to his blog (www.monbiot.com). These are the best articles I've read so far:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/17/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/24/woodchips-with-everything/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/05/the-struggle-against-ourselves/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/may/07/monbiot-climate-change-evacuation
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/06/02/blue-desert/ (VINTAGE)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/06/23/stop-building-tanks/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/18/should-we-seek-to-save-industrial-civilisation/ (Probably the best post I've read)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/17/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/24/woodchips-with-everything/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/05/the-struggle-against-ourselves/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/may/07/monbiot-climate-change-evacuation
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/06/02/blue-desert/ (VINTAGE)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/06/23/stop-building-tanks/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/18/should-we-seek-to-save-industrial-civilisation/ (Probably the best post I've read)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Hurray for the Credit Crunch
You might not be happy about reading this headline if your home has been repossessed and you’ve lost your job but let me cheer you up: things could be a lot worst.
The cost of the ecological crisis that would result from global warming is equivalent to all the economic wealth we’ve produced during the industrial age I would estimate. I believe that our government’s estimate of the cost of 2 world wars back to back falls well short of the actual economic cost. At today’s real estate valuations, if we look at a case scenario where the world’s oceans rise by 25 metres, it’s easy to see that the cost could be much greater. Picture the Eastern Coast of the US, China, Japan, London etc under water. We’re not talking about bombarding or destroying a few cities here and there, we’re talking about a large proportion of our land going under water and what’s left of the land would be absolutely useless to grow anything on it. So I think that a ballpark estimate for global warming potential damage is 50 years of economic production, compare that to about a year or three for the Credit crunch; I’m telling you, things could be worst.
The Oceans won’t rise by 25 meters you say? Read 6 degrees I say.
And that’s not in the distant future either. Once we’ve passed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels of warming, that’s it, “les carottes sont cuites” as the French say (we’re at 0.7 now). What will happen next is a positive feedback loop, runaway global warming or self-fulfilling global warming, call it what you want but in effect, Nature will start competing with us and very successfully may I add at emitting larger and larger amounts of greenhouse gases. In fact, so effective will Nature be at this job that by 2100, only 91 years from now, Nature will be pumping out into the atmosphere the same yearly amount that we emit now. This will warm the Planet even faster.
More carbon in the atmosphere so what you say?
Carbon will cause global temperatures to rise. In a warming world, we will be plighted by flash floods that will erode the land and make it impossible to grow food leading to billions of people dying from famine. Draughts will make this problem even worse and burn what little we have left of forests. This in turn, will reduce oxygen levels in the atmosphere to levels causing us to gasp for air. Billions of people will no longer have access to drinkable water. Sea levels could rise up to 25 meters above their current levels in the long term and 5 meters in the short term. Hurricanes will become far more powerful and destructive than before occurring worldwide and venturing much further into the land. Far worst, billions of buried reserves of methane (23 times worst than carbon) buried under the ice and the oceans will be released into the atmosphere. If lit by lightning, this methane could cause explosions far more powerful and more destructive than any weapons we currently have available. In a warming world, we will have a very large panel of dying options: fry to death, die from starvation or malnutrition, die asphyxiated, die from disease, die from skin cancer, drown, die in the wars caused by social unrest and mass migration... This will happen within our generation, this century; it has already begun. We are at the early stages of the worst mass extinction of all time. So far, nothing too noticeable has happened but once we reach tipping point, the changes will be very large and very noticeable and there will be nothing that can be done about them.
I told you it could be worst than losing your home and losing your job didn’t I? The reason why the credit crunch is such a God send is because when I read the US Economy has contracted by 6% and Chinese exports have fallen by more than 30% in the last quarter: this is fantastic news! It means carbon emissions are coming down and we have a shot at living. In 2007, we had until 2016 to do something before reaching the point of no return. The credit crunch is doing the job for us without us even having to switch to renewable energy right away. I think what we can quite safely say about the credit crunch is that it is buying us some precious time so that we all get a chance to change our lifestyles before it’s too late. Human beings are incredibly slow at getting just how bad that threat is and it’s going to take many more years of press and news coverage for people to get it. But there’s worst factors that are preventing positive change from occurring: everyone’s hooked on consumption. That’s another fantastic side effect of the credit crunch. Everyone’s now realized that you can’t get everything you want right now. This is fantastic. Less greed equals less consumption and the less we consume the less we pollute. Finally, the only viable industry that offers us a way out of this recession is the switch to a green economy as President Obama has understood. When are they going to get it here?
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Renewable energy: the possibilities
I've been reading Monbiot's book, Heat and the chapter on renewable energy is amazing:
Did you know that 62% of the energy generated in power stations is lost?
Here's some interesting stuff about the technology available now and what we can do with it:
- DC cables are now cheaper than AC cables and they have a major advantage: they can transmit energy across large distances without losing it. Ever wondered why these electricity pylons are so big and high up in the air instead of being buried underground?
The answer is the heat they generate: quite simply, to cool the heat generated by these cables, you would need the equivalent of 2 football stadiums underground back to back. That loss of heat is how the energy gets lost. It's the same concept as for incandescent light bulbs: they're only 90% efficient because they let so much heat escape. Why are these cables revolutionary?
If you can transmit energy over a longer distance, you can install the sources of energy much further. For wind power, this means that we can have large offshore wind farms that have large blades generating more noise and producing more energy offshore where no one will complain about them. More than 100% of our electricity in the UK could potentially be produced from wind so long as we can make adequate changes to the grid. For solar energy, it means that we can have solar panels in the sahara desert producing enough electricity for all of Europe.
The economies of scale that could be generated from both these technologies could enable it to compete with the price of brown energy and in the long run make it much cheaper.
Another interesting technology is solar thermal electricity: it's basically reflective dishes that focus the heat from the sun onto a tube containing water or another liquid. This reaches temperatures of about 400 degrees and the steam drives an engine which generates electricity. They've existed in California since the 80s. Their output costs in between 7 bto 9 pence per Kwh this compares to a current average price for brown of 10-15p per Kwh (Source: consumerfocus.org.uk).
Did you know that 62% of the energy generated in power stations is lost?
Here's some interesting stuff about the technology available now and what we can do with it:
- DC cables are now cheaper than AC cables and they have a major advantage: they can transmit energy across large distances without losing it. Ever wondered why these electricity pylons are so big and high up in the air instead of being buried underground?
The answer is the heat they generate: quite simply, to cool the heat generated by these cables, you would need the equivalent of 2 football stadiums underground back to back. That loss of heat is how the energy gets lost. It's the same concept as for incandescent light bulbs: they're only 90% efficient because they let so much heat escape. Why are these cables revolutionary?
If you can transmit energy over a longer distance, you can install the sources of energy much further. For wind power, this means that we can have large offshore wind farms that have large blades generating more noise and producing more energy offshore where no one will complain about them. More than 100% of our electricity in the UK could potentially be produced from wind so long as we can make adequate changes to the grid. For solar energy, it means that we can have solar panels in the sahara desert producing enough electricity for all of Europe.
The economies of scale that could be generated from both these technologies could enable it to compete with the price of brown energy and in the long run make it much cheaper.
Another interesting technology is solar thermal electricity: it's basically reflective dishes that focus the heat from the sun onto a tube containing water or another liquid. This reaches temperatures of about 400 degrees and the steam drives an engine which generates electricity. They've existed in California since the 80s. Their output costs in between 7 bto 9 pence per Kwh this compares to a current average price for brown of 10-15p per Kwh (Source: consumerfocus.org.uk).
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
The Energy problem
We're making progress. President Obama in America has clearly set the agenda on renewable energy as the nation's priority. Since America is the second biggest polluter in the World anything that reduces the impact it has on the Planet is good news.
We have a massive problem with energy, it's not just the lack of or insecurity of supply, it's the use that we're making of it. Most people can easily see that their cars pollute through engines that burn fossil fuels but I wager most would be surprised to know that car pollution, as bad as it looks actually creates less pollution than cattle and the energy used in our homes. The dirtiest type of energy we use to generate electricity is coal. Coal generates twice as much pollution per kilowatt than the average of all the other forms of generating energy we use. 36% of our electricity comes directly from coal. Such is the urgency to reduce our emissions that this figure should already be zero. Our priority has to be to get rid of coal as a means of generating electricity ASAP.
It is very surprising on that basis that Eon is advocating building a coal power plant in Kingston. You can oppose this by visiting: http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk/. Don't believe the stories in the media about clean coal generation, there is not one power plant in the UK that generates clean coal or sequesters the carbon it emits. Clean coal is an oxymoron.
Instead we need to focus on massively increasing our investment in renewable energy. Renewable energy represents only 1% of the UK's energy capacity. Don't count on government to turn things around. I refer you to the book Heat by Monbiot to get an understanding of just how useless the UK government is and will continue to be at reducing emissions unless its citizens push for change. The only entity we can count on to pioneer change is ourselves. We are extremely fortunate in the UK to have a company that has understood the challenge we face and offered us an opportunity to change our ways. This company is Ecotricity. I believe it is the only company in the world that offers what it does.
There are 6 major players in the energy supply market and none of them is making an effort to increase the nation's renewable energy capacity. The government has requested 5% of their energy come from renewables and only one of these companies has 7% of their energy coming from renewables. They are heavily advertising themselves as being at the forefront of the green revolution!!! 2% more than the rest...
There are 3 key companies in the renewable energy supply sector: green energy, good energy and ecotricity. Of these 3 companies, Ecotricity is the only one that is directly investing in renewable energy. As a matter of fact, they are the only company in the UK that reinvest 100% of the client's spend into building new renewable energy capacity. This is no short of incredible; for someone seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, becoming an Ecotricity customer can make a huge difference.
The average UK citizen's carbon footprint is 12.5 tonnes in direct and indirect emissions. The footprint from electricity per home is only 1-2 tonnes a year whilst the average home generates about 6 tonnes of carbon a year. In 2008, ecotricity was able to remove an estimated 1.75 tonnes of carbon per customer from the atmosphere. This year however, based on the figures on their website and assuming a growth of 1000 customers per month, the average removal of carbon per customer will work out at 5.4 tonnes per customer, almost equivalent to the home's entire carbon emissions. That's an offset of 2 to 3 times more than the actual average household electricity consumption. It almost solves the problem of having to use gas for heating (for the time being only).
I can't stress how impressive that is. I've been investigating the possibilities to reduce our global emissions and the installation of renewable energy to replace coal use is by none the most effective and most realistic option we have available at this point. I had a high opinion of trees but unfortunately trees will not really sink a significant of carbon until 40-50 years in the future whilst they are very useful to fight the future flood problems we'll have along with generating oxygen that will gradually disappear as the rainforest gets the chop, they're not the solution to the drastic and immediate changes we need to make to avoid the catastrophe of runaway global warming (by this expression, we mean that above 2 degrees, nature will start producing vast quantities of carbon in an unstoppable loop and by 2100, will produce more carbon than human beings do thereby exacerbating global warming). Even the Energy Saving Trust recommends that if you are trying to offset your carbon footprint, you need to look at renewable energy projects where the carbon emissions reduction is visible rather than anything else. Find out more about carbon offsets here.
At this point, an important question must be raised: why is it that for the last 10 years Good Energy and Ecotricity have been around, their customer base adds up to less than 70000 homes?
Green electricity is a little more expensive than traditional energy but not massively. Why then? For one, these companies lack a direct sales force. For two, the average UK citizen just does not understand how serious the global warming problem is and they lack the understanding of what they can do to turn things around. It's down to individuals to change the world not governments or companies. Governments follow individuals, they don't take risks. It takes a massively charismatic leader to take political risks and one that can withstand the full blow of the media frenzy and voter loss of support when taking challenging decisions. I can't see one of those in the UK political landscape. Don't count on an Obama down here anytime soon. Understandably, politicians prefer not to gamble away their careers. They are after all in the majority, not idealists but negotiators and in the end, career people.
So unfortunately, Ecotricity has failed to meet its goal of supplying 1,000,000 customers by 2010 by a landslide and generating 500 Mwh of capacity. It's not too late, we can all support Ecotricity, all we have to do is become a customer.
We have a massive problem with energy, it's not just the lack of or insecurity of supply, it's the use that we're making of it. Most people can easily see that their cars pollute through engines that burn fossil fuels but I wager most would be surprised to know that car pollution, as bad as it looks actually creates less pollution than cattle and the energy used in our homes. The dirtiest type of energy we use to generate electricity is coal. Coal generates twice as much pollution per kilowatt than the average of all the other forms of generating energy we use. 36% of our electricity comes directly from coal. Such is the urgency to reduce our emissions that this figure should already be zero. Our priority has to be to get rid of coal as a means of generating electricity ASAP.
It is very surprising on that basis that Eon is advocating building a coal power plant in Kingston. You can oppose this by visiting: http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk/. Don't believe the stories in the media about clean coal generation, there is not one power plant in the UK that generates clean coal or sequesters the carbon it emits. Clean coal is an oxymoron.
Instead we need to focus on massively increasing our investment in renewable energy. Renewable energy represents only 1% of the UK's energy capacity. Don't count on government to turn things around. I refer you to the book Heat by Monbiot to get an understanding of just how useless the UK government is and will continue to be at reducing emissions unless its citizens push for change. The only entity we can count on to pioneer change is ourselves. We are extremely fortunate in the UK to have a company that has understood the challenge we face and offered us an opportunity to change our ways. This company is Ecotricity. I believe it is the only company in the world that offers what it does.
There are 6 major players in the energy supply market and none of them is making an effort to increase the nation's renewable energy capacity. The government has requested 5% of their energy come from renewables and only one of these companies has 7% of their energy coming from renewables. They are heavily advertising themselves as being at the forefront of the green revolution!!! 2% more than the rest...
There are 3 key companies in the renewable energy supply sector: green energy, good energy and ecotricity. Of these 3 companies, Ecotricity is the only one that is directly investing in renewable energy. As a matter of fact, they are the only company in the UK that reinvest 100% of the client's spend into building new renewable energy capacity. This is no short of incredible; for someone seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, becoming an Ecotricity customer can make a huge difference.
The average UK citizen's carbon footprint is 12.5 tonnes in direct and indirect emissions. The footprint from electricity per home is only 1-2 tonnes a year whilst the average home generates about 6 tonnes of carbon a year. In 2008, ecotricity was able to remove an estimated 1.75 tonnes of carbon per customer from the atmosphere. This year however, based on the figures on their website and assuming a growth of 1000 customers per month, the average removal of carbon per customer will work out at 5.4 tonnes per customer, almost equivalent to the home's entire carbon emissions. That's an offset of 2 to 3 times more than the actual average household electricity consumption. It almost solves the problem of having to use gas for heating (for the time being only).
I can't stress how impressive that is. I've been investigating the possibilities to reduce our global emissions and the installation of renewable energy to replace coal use is by none the most effective and most realistic option we have available at this point. I had a high opinion of trees but unfortunately trees will not really sink a significant of carbon until 40-50 years in the future whilst they are very useful to fight the future flood problems we'll have along with generating oxygen that will gradually disappear as the rainforest gets the chop, they're not the solution to the drastic and immediate changes we need to make to avoid the catastrophe of runaway global warming (by this expression, we mean that above 2 degrees, nature will start producing vast quantities of carbon in an unstoppable loop and by 2100, will produce more carbon than human beings do thereby exacerbating global warming). Even the Energy Saving Trust recommends that if you are trying to offset your carbon footprint, you need to look at renewable energy projects where the carbon emissions reduction is visible rather than anything else. Find out more about carbon offsets here.
At this point, an important question must be raised: why is it that for the last 10 years Good Energy and Ecotricity have been around, their customer base adds up to less than 70000 homes?
Green electricity is a little more expensive than traditional energy but not massively. Why then? For one, these companies lack a direct sales force. For two, the average UK citizen just does not understand how serious the global warming problem is and they lack the understanding of what they can do to turn things around. It's down to individuals to change the world not governments or companies. Governments follow individuals, they don't take risks. It takes a massively charismatic leader to take political risks and one that can withstand the full blow of the media frenzy and voter loss of support when taking challenging decisions. I can't see one of those in the UK political landscape. Don't count on an Obama down here anytime soon. Understandably, politicians prefer not to gamble away their careers. They are after all in the majority, not idealists but negotiators and in the end, career people.
So unfortunately, Ecotricity has failed to meet its goal of supplying 1,000,000 customers by 2010 by a landslide and generating 500 Mwh of capacity. It's not too late, we can all support Ecotricity, all we have to do is become a customer.
Climate change and the media
Extract from Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, 2006:
"Isn't there disagreement among scientists about whether the global warming problem is real or not? Not really. There was a massive study of every scientific article in a peer reviewed journal written on global warming for the last 10 years and they took a 10% sample, 928 articles. The number of those disagreeing with the scientific concensus that we're causing global warming and that it is a serious problem was ZERO. The misconception that there is disagreement about the science has been deliberately created by a relatively small group of people. One of their internal memos leaked and here's what it said: our objective is to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact. Have they succeeded? There was another study of all the articles in the popular press over the last 14 years. They looked at a sample of 636 articles. 53% doubted that we were the cause."
The more I read about climate change the more I am astonished at the lack of discussion and lack of programs about it in the media. We are at a critical point: if we don't do more about it within the next 4 years, the damage will be irreversible. It may already be irreversible. 2009 may be the first summer with no arctic sea ice in Greenland. So what you say? No arctic sea ice in Greenland means the biosphere has lost part of its ability to sink carbon and that the golf stream current will stall. In other words, the disappearance of the arctic sea ice means the onset of our species becoming extinct. Why is there not more media coverage about that?
In my view it's down to the news culture. News is about what happens now, not what will happen and it is what we are being fed on TV every day. There's a complete lack of foresight in the British media that is both appalling and worrying. The media plays a key role in informing the population and if the population is not well informed enough then they can't be prepared for climate change or be motivated to do anything about it.
Take for example the recent articles in the Times and the Mail deploring the loss of incandescent light bulbs or questioning whether we should continue recycling paper considering the market for it has collapsed. This is outrageous! Have they not heard of deforestation contributing to 20% of the worldwide emissions of carbon or of the ever rising levels of carbon in our atmosphere threatening our species of extinction? There's so much wrong with our culture I can't even begin to express my disgust.
Here's some evidence of The Times's campaign to deny climate change and to encourage people to do nothing about it (an action which in our opinion is equivalent to denying the Holocaust or if we put ourselves back at the time of that event: encouraging it):
Read the published section of have your say on articles about the environment: The Times always advertises predominantly negative opinions on articles related to climate change.
18/3/09 Anger as Shell reduces renewables investment, 2/3 comments are negative.
"Isn't there disagreement among scientists about whether the global warming problem is real or not? Not really. There was a massive study of every scientific article in a peer reviewed journal written on global warming for the last 10 years and they took a 10% sample, 928 articles. The number of those disagreeing with the scientific concensus that we're causing global warming and that it is a serious problem was ZERO. The misconception that there is disagreement about the science has been deliberately created by a relatively small group of people. One of their internal memos leaked and here's what it said: our objective is to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact. Have they succeeded? There was another study of all the articles in the popular press over the last 14 years. They looked at a sample of 636 articles. 53% doubted that we were the cause."
The more I read about climate change the more I am astonished at the lack of discussion and lack of programs about it in the media. We are at a critical point: if we don't do more about it within the next 4 years, the damage will be irreversible. It may already be irreversible. 2009 may be the first summer with no arctic sea ice in Greenland. So what you say? No arctic sea ice in Greenland means the biosphere has lost part of its ability to sink carbon and that the golf stream current will stall. In other words, the disappearance of the arctic sea ice means the onset of our species becoming extinct. Why is there not more media coverage about that?
In my view it's down to the news culture. News is about what happens now, not what will happen and it is what we are being fed on TV every day. There's a complete lack of foresight in the British media that is both appalling and worrying. The media plays a key role in informing the population and if the population is not well informed enough then they can't be prepared for climate change or be motivated to do anything about it.
Take for example the recent articles in the Times and the Mail deploring the loss of incandescent light bulbs or questioning whether we should continue recycling paper considering the market for it has collapsed. This is outrageous! Have they not heard of deforestation contributing to 20% of the worldwide emissions of carbon or of the ever rising levels of carbon in our atmosphere threatening our species of extinction? There's so much wrong with our culture I can't even begin to express my disgust.
Here's some evidence of The Times's campaign to deny climate change and to encourage people to do nothing about it (an action which in our opinion is equivalent to denying the Holocaust or if we put ourselves back at the time of that event: encouraging it):
Read the published section of have your say on articles about the environment: The Times always advertises predominantly negative opinions on articles related to climate change.
18/3/09 Anger as Shell reduces renewables investment, 2/3 comments are negative.
Yes, Joe, edinburgh - Greens should put their money where their considerable mouths are. The trouble is - like all socialists - they only want to play games with OTHER people's money.
JohnW, Manchester, UK
The oil companies are making sound business decisions.
It's enviros who are the hypocrites - Wind projects have high initial CO2 usage and noise pollution; Hydro CO2 usage, flooding of production areas and water shortage downstream: Solar CO2 usage and equipment disposal problems. Main Scam is CO2
Jim Talbot, Auckland, New Zealand
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
The real problem of carbon capture
There are 3 stages to saving ourselves from certain extinction:
1- Reduce our carbon emissions
2- Eliminate or overcompensate our carbon emissions through offsets
3- Find a way to recuperate and trap the carbon we've emitted over the past 50 years
Reducing and eliminating our carbon emissions is possible. We live in world that's taken a long time to realize there was a problem with our emissions but things are looking much better now than they were 3 or 10 years ago. The government is advertising energy emissions reductions, the media has ongoing programs and articles on the topic and the industry is receiving investment. All this is very slow in comparison to how quickly we need to make these changes but at least we're moving forwards.
The trouble with climate change is that it is a function of the carbon we've emitted over the past 50 years and it is a function of the carbon we are going to continue emitting. The level of population is already unsustainable at current carbon emissions and resource consumption per capita levels. Ideally we need 500 million people and we have 6-12 times more. By 2050, we'll have 9 billion people at current population growth rates, 9-18 times more than the planet can sustain. Looking at the growth in carbon emissions of our civilization, it is likely that these 9 billion people will emit more carbon than we are now.
Even if these people somehow manage to emit zero carbon, we're still going to have a problem because temperatures will continue rising and with as little as a 2-3 degrees average global warming, 2-3 billion people will be without water. Can we let these future generations die?
No, not if we have just an ounce of compassion in our make up. So we need to regulate births in Western countries, that's about as important as trying to cut carbon emissions to make room for those future refugees. And if anyone's worried about lack of younger generations to pay for other's retirements; don't worry: with climate change we'll have plenty of immigrants just begging to come to work here because the opportunities in their part of the world will have all but disappeared thanks to us importing our rotten development model. We owe them at least a new home so we should start making space.
Now let's assume we do 1 and 2 and we manage to live in a world without human carbon. It's not impossible you know. What then? Well because of the increase in temperatures, Nature will be generating more carbon than it used to. This will come from increased fires, forest loss, methane released from the permafrost, methane released from the oceans etc... So the one problem that no one seems to be addressing right now is: how are we going to trap all this carbon to avoid ever worsening climate change?
This is the one area where we really need to pin our hopes on science and on our collective intelligence. So far there has only been talks about carbon capture in respect of continuing to burn fossil fuels. Talk about carbon capture is related to trapping the carbon emitted by power plants such as coal plants in depleted gas or oil fields. But there has been no talk about how we can reduce the current 380 particles per million (ppm) of CO2 to the much more sustainable 280 ppm we had just 500 years ago. And that's what we need to address to avoid runaway or positive feedback climate change.
First we need to find a place where to stock all this carbon. The good news is we've found a spot, it's on the Eastern cost of America, under the ocean. Second we need to drill that area and get a pipeline running from North America to the Ocean to send all that carbon down below the Earth's crust. Third, we need to invent a gigantic particle hover(s) that can hover up everything in the atmosphere, filter out the carbon and spit out the rest. That's where we've come unstuck, I have not heard a single report of anyone even researching that option.
So if you're a brilliant scientist, forget about re-conciliating general relativity with quantum mechanics and please focus on saving our arses pronto please.
Finally, I mentioned methane earlier in this article. We have huge amounts of methane available almost everywhere on earth and especially buried in the oceans. Methane is the main ingredient used in the production of natural gas that can be used to power vehicles. The only reason why we are not using it now is because of accidents which made it seem less safe than oil or coal. All our vehicles could be running on natural gas. As a matter of fact, all public transport in Bangkok Thailand now runs on natural gas. For an equivalent amount of heat, burning natural gas produces about 30% less carbon dioxide than burning petroleum and about 45% less than burning coal. According to wikipedia those reduced emissions do not include the methane released in the atmosphere in the drilling process (methane units pollute 23 times more than Co2 units). To me it would make a lot of sense to drill methane where it is likely to naturally evaporate into the atmosphere due to global warming ie in the permafrost and in the arctic circles. If that methane is burned and provides us with more eco-friendly transportation at the same time as we avoid its release into the atmosphere, then it should be much more beneficial to us than burning oil or coal.
1- Reduce our carbon emissions
2- Eliminate or overcompensate our carbon emissions through offsets
3- Find a way to recuperate and trap the carbon we've emitted over the past 50 years
Reducing and eliminating our carbon emissions is possible. We live in world that's taken a long time to realize there was a problem with our emissions but things are looking much better now than they were 3 or 10 years ago. The government is advertising energy emissions reductions, the media has ongoing programs and articles on the topic and the industry is receiving investment. All this is very slow in comparison to how quickly we need to make these changes but at least we're moving forwards.
The trouble with climate change is that it is a function of the carbon we've emitted over the past 50 years and it is a function of the carbon we are going to continue emitting. The level of population is already unsustainable at current carbon emissions and resource consumption per capita levels. Ideally we need 500 million people and we have 6-12 times more. By 2050, we'll have 9 billion people at current population growth rates, 9-18 times more than the planet can sustain. Looking at the growth in carbon emissions of our civilization, it is likely that these 9 billion people will emit more carbon than we are now.
Even if these people somehow manage to emit zero carbon, we're still going to have a problem because temperatures will continue rising and with as little as a 2-3 degrees average global warming, 2-3 billion people will be without water. Can we let these future generations die?
No, not if we have just an ounce of compassion in our make up. So we need to regulate births in Western countries, that's about as important as trying to cut carbon emissions to make room for those future refugees. And if anyone's worried about lack of younger generations to pay for other's retirements; don't worry: with climate change we'll have plenty of immigrants just begging to come to work here because the opportunities in their part of the world will have all but disappeared thanks to us importing our rotten development model. We owe them at least a new home so we should start making space.
Now let's assume we do 1 and 2 and we manage to live in a world without human carbon. It's not impossible you know. What then? Well because of the increase in temperatures, Nature will be generating more carbon than it used to. This will come from increased fires, forest loss, methane released from the permafrost, methane released from the oceans etc... So the one problem that no one seems to be addressing right now is: how are we going to trap all this carbon to avoid ever worsening climate change?
This is the one area where we really need to pin our hopes on science and on our collective intelligence. So far there has only been talks about carbon capture in respect of continuing to burn fossil fuels. Talk about carbon capture is related to trapping the carbon emitted by power plants such as coal plants in depleted gas or oil fields. But there has been no talk about how we can reduce the current 380 particles per million (ppm) of CO2 to the much more sustainable 280 ppm we had just 500 years ago. And that's what we need to address to avoid runaway or positive feedback climate change.
First we need to find a place where to stock all this carbon. The good news is we've found a spot, it's on the Eastern cost of America, under the ocean. Second we need to drill that area and get a pipeline running from North America to the Ocean to send all that carbon down below the Earth's crust. Third, we need to invent a gigantic particle hover(s) that can hover up everything in the atmosphere, filter out the carbon and spit out the rest. That's where we've come unstuck, I have not heard a single report of anyone even researching that option.
So if you're a brilliant scientist, forget about re-conciliating general relativity with quantum mechanics and please focus on saving our arses pronto please.
Finally, I mentioned methane earlier in this article. We have huge amounts of methane available almost everywhere on earth and especially buried in the oceans. Methane is the main ingredient used in the production of natural gas that can be used to power vehicles. The only reason why we are not using it now is because of accidents which made it seem less safe than oil or coal. All our vehicles could be running on natural gas. As a matter of fact, all public transport in Bangkok Thailand now runs on natural gas. For an equivalent amount of heat, burning natural gas produces about 30% less carbon dioxide than burning petroleum and about 45% less than burning coal. According to wikipedia those reduced emissions do not include the methane released in the atmosphere in the drilling process (methane units pollute 23 times more than Co2 units). To me it would make a lot of sense to drill methane where it is likely to naturally evaporate into the atmosphere due to global warming ie in the permafrost and in the arctic circles. If that methane is burned and provides us with more eco-friendly transportation at the same time as we avoid its release into the atmosphere, then it should be much more beneficial to us than burning oil or coal.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Some key Statistics and facts
Over 50% of the world population is now urbanized according to the United Nations. The majority of people are out of touch with the natural world.
The levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for 650,000 years. (Source: The economics of climate change 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern)
Carbon dioxide levels have been rising over the past century faster than at any time over the past 20,000 years. (Source: The economics of climate change 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern)
The increase in temperature in the twentieth century is likely to have been the largest in any century in the past 1000 years. (Source: World Meteorological Organization, The Eddington Transport study 2006)
If everyone in the world lived like we do in the UK, we’d need three planets – not just one. (WWF Website)
There are over 32,000,000 million vehicles in the U.K.
On average 24.6 miles are driven every day by single user vehicles.
Over 400,000 tones of carbon dioxide emissions are pumped into the atmosphere every day. (isanyonegoingto.com)
Over the last century the total mass of vertebrates has halved. Meanwhile the mass of humans has quadrupled. (The Planet documentary)
Since 1990, China's emissions have increased by 67%. The figure for India is 88%.
A single European consumes 50 tonnes of our planet's resources every year.
The level of CO2 in the atmosphere today is the highest is 750,000 years.
The 22 warmest years ever recorded have occured since 1980.
96% of all surveyed glaciers around the world are currently diminishing in size.
In Western China, 300 million people rely in whole or in part on glacial meltwater during the summer to irrigate their crops. What are they going to do? This is fossil water, they're not going to get it back until the next ice age. The disappearance of those glaciers alone is enough to cause a net food defcit and a global humanitarian catastrophy.
Over one billion people are already suffering from a shortage of clean water.
In 2010, 50 million people will be trying to escape the effects of environmental deterioration.
Natural disasters have increased more than fourfold over the last 40 years. Windstorms, fiverfold. Flooding sixfold. Bushfires tenfold.
What you do now happens in 50 years time with the climate.
CO2 emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity are greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America. (“GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990-2006,” US EPA 2008)
There are roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the U.S. Not one of them captures and stores its global warming pollution. (“Electricity Facts,” US DOE 2008 (link); IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme CO2 Capture and Storage Database (link); Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT, CO2 Capture and Storage Project Database (link))
The levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for 650,000 years. (Source: The economics of climate change 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern)
Carbon dioxide levels have been rising over the past century faster than at any time over the past 20,000 years. (Source: The economics of climate change 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern)
The increase in temperature in the twentieth century is likely to have been the largest in any century in the past 1000 years. (Source: World Meteorological Organization, The Eddington Transport study 2006)
If everyone in the world lived like we do in the UK, we’d need three planets – not just one. (WWF Website)
There are over 32,000,000 million vehicles in the U.K.
On average 24.6 miles are driven every day by single user vehicles.
Over 400,000 tones of carbon dioxide emissions are pumped into the atmosphere every day. (isanyonegoingto.com)
Over the last century the total mass of vertebrates has halved. Meanwhile the mass of humans has quadrupled. (The Planet documentary)
Since 1990, China's emissions have increased by 67%. The figure for India is 88%.
A single European consumes 50 tonnes of our planet's resources every year.
The level of CO2 in the atmosphere today is the highest is 750,000 years.
The 22 warmest years ever recorded have occured since 1980.
96% of all surveyed glaciers around the world are currently diminishing in size.
In Western China, 300 million people rely in whole or in part on glacial meltwater during the summer to irrigate their crops. What are they going to do? This is fossil water, they're not going to get it back until the next ice age. The disappearance of those glaciers alone is enough to cause a net food defcit and a global humanitarian catastrophy.
Over one billion people are already suffering from a shortage of clean water.
In 2010, 50 million people will be trying to escape the effects of environmental deterioration.
Natural disasters have increased more than fourfold over the last 40 years. Windstorms, fiverfold. Flooding sixfold. Bushfires tenfold.
What you do now happens in 50 years time with the climate.
CO2 emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity are greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America. (“GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990-2006,” US EPA 2008)
There are roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the U.S. Not one of them captures and stores its global warming pollution. (“Electricity Facts,” US DOE 2008 (link); IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme CO2 Capture and Storage Database (link); Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT, CO2 Capture and Storage Project Database (link))
Monday, 16 February 2009
Why Chinese-made products must be boycotted by Western Consumers
“China is still a developing country and the present task confronting China is to develop its economy and alleviate poverty, as well as raise the living standard of its people,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.
“Given that, it is natural for China to have some increase in its emissions, so it is not possible for China in that context to accept a binding or compulsory target.”
11/06/2009, SourceChina is responsible for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. China in 2006 became the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the World. Over the past decade, China was able to lift 500 million out of poverty into the middle class. As a developing country, China is not required to reduce its emissions. China mainly relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for energy. Over the next 10 years, China will be building 500 coal fired powered stations. Every 4 days, China is opening a new power station. To give you an idea of the scale of these constructions, the United States has 600 coal fired power station whilst the UK only has 17 but they supply 33% of its electricity.
Dermot O'Gorman, WWF China Country Representative, said that "Developed countries who benefit from importing goods instead of domestic production are also responsible for the rapid growth of China's energy consumption and greenhouse gases emission. It's unfair to put the blame on China for the large emission of greenhouse gases."
Chinese officials have recently stated that they are not prepared to put greenhouse gas emissions ahead of growth on their agenda. In the same way as Western countries have dramatically failed to decrease their carbon emissions and meet the Kyoto protocol Traty targets, China is failing to reduce its own.
It seems obvious to me that as Western consumers eager to purchase cheap goods, we must refrain from purchasing as much as possible anything produced in China until China commits to reducing and managing its carbon emissions properly.
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